How to Use in-joke in a Sentence

in-joke

noun
  • On June 2, a Daily Mail article introduced this internet in-joke to the masses.
    Leah Dolan, CNN, 14 June 2024
  • And the trust the couple set up with the name Olfert could have been a private in-joke.
    Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 13 Sep. 2023
  • The album is paced to flow like an old-school LP, with 12 songs in 42 minutes, splicing straight-for-the-jugular songs with detours and in-jokes.
    Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 27 Mar. 2023
  • This is the show, after all, that worked in a reference to an extremely nerdy Star Wars in-joke about an ice cream maker.
    Katie Rife, Chron, 2 Mar. 2023
  • However, for those in the know, the in-jokes and references are a delightful surprise in this ode to the classic studio era.
    Tim Moffatt, EW.com, 26 Jan. 2024
  • The app’s user base skews young, and the content brims with references, memes and in-jokes the uninitiated won’t understand.
    Tatum Hunter, Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2023
  • As an art-house in-joke, the title of Williams’ new sort-of-documentary, sort-of-funhouse-mirror-maze skips straight to threequel status.
    J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 22 Sep. 2023
  • The title of the first full-length boygenius album, like many aspects of the band’s fledgling lore, is a playful little in-joke that functions as both a wink and a provocation.
    Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2023
  • Or the in-joke nod to Beetlejuice, a comparative reference which does this movie zero favors.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 26 July 2023
  • This film, with its bevy of cameos and in-jokes specific to the French arthouse scene, is unlikely to break the pattern, but the Fillières faithful will hold it especially dear.
    Guy Lodge, Variety, 16 May 2024
  • Scrubs one episode at a time, offering memories, behind-the-scenes trivia, and heartwarming in-jokes.
    Josh Sargent, Men's Health, 14 Mar. 2023
  • These worlds are full of specialized languages, secret social codes, and networks of references and in-jokes that would take weeks of immersive study to grasp.
    Phillip MacIak, WIRED, 7 Mar. 2023
  • The loneliest feeling in the world must be somebody stumbling into The First Shadow as a total neophyte and wondering why everything seems to be an in-joke.
    Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Yes, there are in-jokes and references to how this timeline differs from ours, along with Easter eggs, some cat’s-out-the-bag cameos courtesy of a crisis on infinite earths, and a few secrets that are best kept as secrets.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 June 2023
  • These are worthy questions that Honoré asks but never really answers, opting instead for in-jokes, homages, cameos and a flighty narrative that fails to sustain his film’s high-concept premise.
    Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • But this is really about the rush of watching Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt making goo-goo eyes at each other in between the occasional explosions, high-pursuit car chases, shoot-outs and industry in-jokes.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 13 Mar. 2024
  • So perhaps one way to honor Granger is to reclaim the avocado toast meme as an in-joke that nonmillionaires and nonbillionaires of all generations can relate to.
    Aarushi Bhandari, The Conversation, 17 Jan. 2024
  • Advertisement The formula was also juiced by a few new water-cooler ingredients, including an in-joke in which Smith is slapped by Lawrence, clearly a reference to the Oscars .
    Greg Braxton, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2024
  • Fewer still will have the PhD-level familiarity with his filmography to appreciate all the in-jokes to his oeuvre, which builds to a feel-good reunion of actors from the real-life Moretti’s previous movies.
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 24 May 2023
  • That provides a winking in-joke for domestic audiences in his casting here as another shrink, Celeste, the title character’s despondent father, who generally has his head too deep in books to look at life.
    David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Those cinematic in-jokes geared for older viewers are a prime example of Kaufman’s consistently amusing screenplay.
    Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Jan. 2024
  • Their announcement implicitly welcomes autistic audience members, too, noting that there are resources available should anyone feel overwhelmed by the spectacle, and including a few in-jokes.
    Vulture, 10 Dec. 2023
  • To live here is to be in a never-ending conspiratorial conversation, with weird asides, in-jokes, unsolicited advice and unanticipated encouragement.
    Dodai Stewart, New York Times, 26 June 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'in-joke.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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